1. In the new Higurashi chapter, Tamura is the Big Bad. She will be revealed to be a Shadow Archetype to Hanyuu. Her experiences will have turned her into a cold, uncaring Knight Templar with good publicity in her realm as opposed to the loving, motherly Messianic Archetype with a bad rap that Hanyuu is. Their conflict will be one of law vs chaos with Tamura being law and Hanyuu being chaos.

The name given to this chapter implies something very unpleasant happening to gods, which is further evidence in favor.

A name for this theory: The "Higurashi: Rebellion Theory".

Partially Jossed, but also partially true. Tamura was indeed a Lawful Evil bad guy. Une was evil too, more specifically Chaotic Evil. Rika was forced to due something drastic, defeating both but didn't become a demon.

What was the Logic Error of Higurashi?

This is something a lot harder to pin down than who was the winner of the Hinamizawa Gameboard, but I do have a theory about this. I warn, it's not as... conclusive as my previous argument, in my eyes. However, I can back up my claims using logic and what we do know. So let's break down this question into what we can work out and use that as the stepping stones to our explanation.

When did the Logic Error Happen?

Think of this as a... stronger and more comprehensive version of what I said to Rune. Aka. the explanation Enigma gives when he's awake. I personally place it at Massacre Arc. Mainly because that is the one arc where things go so differently. For example, Takano being revealed as the mastermind and the reveal of Hinamizawa syndrome. On the witches side, no-one's gone insane. They meet Hanyuu. But... some basics have stayed the same. Tomitake dies, for one. Takano "dies". So forth and so forth. Now, the major explanation for this is Lamdba's work.

Let's take a break here and actually see just how clever an opponent Lambda was. For someone so energetic and, well, not-energetic, she definitely pulled off some masterful moves. In my previous theory, I explained why Takano was a piece of the human side. Now, let's look at the moves Lambda pulled off using her. For the first set of arcs, the question arcs, she was more or less content to watch and passively make theories like Battler did. However, it's from even the very beginning of the answer arcs that we see Lambda really fight back using her piece and take control of the gameboard. Her first was a simple one. "Pieces can't do anything that would be out of character." For Lambda's planned attack, she'd have to make Takano's move make perfect sense. Now, the first part of her attack required one thing. The Takano notebooks and Takano's willingness to give them out to people. So, in Eye Opening, she gives her notebook to Shion. This takes place after Shion and Takano become friends, have talked a bit, Shion's kind of explained her worries very slightly.... This is much, much different than in Atonement where she just hands her notebook to Rena. But, that doesn't seem out of place since we've seen a similar move the previous game. In other words, Lambda MADE her next move make sense.

But just why was that move so necessary? Well, it's because of a rule always present in any fair mystery (and is in both Van Dine's and Knox's rules.) Namely, that there has to be clues and foreshadowing to the answer. And Takano provided that. She more or less, implanted her own theory. Her own answer, right into the text. By giving Rena the notebook, she had provided adequate foreshadowing for Hinamizawa Syndrome. A parasite that controls the mind. To Featherine's credit, she did launch a counter attack by the creation of Takano's OTHER notebooks. In fact, those were probably the previous theories of Lambda herself. But, that doesn't matter. Lambda had created the gateway to prove her solution.

And prove her solution she did. In Massacre, we watch as Takano pretty much answers every mystery of Higurashi. Lambda cleverly starts off by explaining the murders of Tomitake and "Takano". That's the mystery of the ghost on the Watanagashi, and our first major mystery of magic cleared up. She then goes and properly explains Hinamizawa Syndrome as a parasite. And finally, she orchestrates the Great Hinamizawa Disaster and explains the deaths of everyone. All using (even slightly weakly) foreshadowed human methods.

This is necessary to explain just where the logic error happened because, first, it explains the situation. All the rest of the games were mainly in Featherine's control. There is no reason why Logic Error would ever occur. This is true in Umineko too. While crafting a good story is hard, we see that the only reason Battler entered Logic Error was because his story was taken off the rails. He was put on the spot. It's the same deal here. Featherine was probably flipping out at just how much Lambda has affected her story. She had to think on her feet. And that's where she became prone to making mistakes.

But, we also need to look at the witches side. On their side, as said before... it's actually pretty much the same as the previous games. The only major difference is Hanyuu and the fact our protag doesn't go crazy. That last one's pretty important to explaining how the logic error happened in that game. You see, with no crazy people nothing is left vague. What we see is 100% impartial. And that means there's finally room for logic errors to appear that can't be waved away as "lolinsanity". Funnily enough, I believe Featherine WOULD have made Rika go insane if she could. But Lambda negated that. By forcing her theory as truth on the gameboard, she also brought in the fact that Rika is immune to the syndrome. Effectively making it so that Rika couldn't be crazy. This fact becomes a major issue later on. But, for now, let's move on to another element that needs to be understood.

Detectives and Impartial Observers

In Umineko, (and by relation, Higurashi) there is a rule that basically states that the detective is an impartial observer. That whatever they see is what they see. Now, this can be clouded, like when Battler got drunk and saw Beatrice and Kinzo and goats and other trippy messed up stuff. This is, though, only one of the two "definitions" of detective that Umineko creates. The second, is the power of detectives authority. The detective with this is impartial and cannot be tricked or see weird stuff. What they see is the truth. However, the detective doesn't necessarily have to be the detective with detecives authority to be the detective. Or, if that's too confusing for you, the detective doesn't have to fit definition 2 to be the detective. Basically, the detective can have the impartial view without having to be "the detective". This is shown in Episode 6 of Umineko where Erika was the detective with the impartial view. This is proven by almost all talk pertaining to her in the metaworld. But, we also see that she doesn't necessarily have to follow any of the detective rules. For example, she can be the culprit. Or she can be fooled or tricked. Being the one with the impartial view, doesn't mean that you are the "detective".

Now, in Higurashi, as far as we see the people with the impartial view are the protagonists. They can be tricked and see or hear things which don't exist, but they never see directly false scenes. It's basically if Battler was drunk for all of Umineko. He'd still have the impartial view, but he'd see all sorts of crazy stuff. Same deal with Higurashi. This is especially important as, besides small parts in Atonement, Festival Accompaniment and Massacre we only really get one view. The game would be impossibly unfair if we gave the impartial view to someone else.

What was the Logic Error?

A logic error has three parts to it, more or less. The action, the contradiction and the solution (if it is ever reached). I will now attempt to explain all three and how exactly the error came about.

Let's start with the "action". In this case, it was the placing of Hanyuu on the gameboard. A simple move, but a fatal one. See, Hanyuu contradicts a rule that is pretty much the golden rule of the games. You can't have the impartial observer witness the magic, themselves. At least, that's pretty much how the rule is. It's discussed quite a few times in Umineko how, for example, Beatrice can't say "Beatrice is Real" in red. And that, since it has to be solvable on the human side, you can't have an unexplainable occurence where Beatrice or the witch pops up. Of course, it's perfectly okay to show the witch (or god in this case) provided it comes with a fair answer.

And this is where the logic error came about. Again, I must commend Lambdadelta on her skills at playing the game. See, remember before how I said that I believe that Rika was originally going to be insane? So far, that was the explanation for everything seen by the impartial observer that made no sense. I'm pretty sure that this time would have been no different. So, Featherine actually showed Rika (who is an impartial observer) the guardian deity of Hinamizawa. Sher probably planned to explain that as "lolinsanity". But then Lambda made a crushing move. She made Rika immune to the syndrome. Not only that, but Featherine really hadn't set up many clues or foreshadowing for an alternate solution. Basically, it was too late. Featherine had, pretty much, placed an unexplainable supernatural piece on the board. She had, in effect, trapped herself in logic error. But we know how much of a jerk Featherine was. She had her Bernkastel piece take the fall instead. Bern supposedly had to walk over keys time and time again until she finally wrote the word miracle. Though, that makes absolutely no sense. How do you solve a logic error like that? Unless, it seems, she was trying to achieve the impossible. To create the real miracle that was the world of Festival Accompaniment.

Here's where the solution lies. In fact, the solution is also further evidence that Hanyuu was the logic error. What is the major, game changing difference in Festival Accompaniment? Rena even says it herself. It's now that they had Hanyuu. More specifically, Hanyuu is a physical being in Festival Accompaniment. She's pretty much a human.That, also, serves to explain Hanyuu in Massacre (albeit, slightly). Hanyuu is a person. That removes the supernatural, ghost issue. But, there are still issues. Such as the powers Hanyuu has and the acknowledgement of the previous worlds. There is also still a few unexplained things about Hanyuu. However, those were probably worked out by Bern and we just don't know the answer. Remember, if EVERYTHING was answered and explained it would have been Lambda's win. All that matters, is that Bern made a move that explained the apparent ghostly god Rika knows.

BONUS WMG: This Troper Tries To Solve The Logic Error

Unlike the rest of this theory, this doesn't exactly... work on proper argument or evidence. No. This is just my attempt to solve the logic error that is Hanyuu. So, let's begin.

Hanyuu has Hinamizawa Syndrome. As a result, she believes that she is a god. This is hinted at by Takano who believes that she is going to become a god. Hanyuu is showing the same symptoms. As a result, she believes that she can remember previous worlds and has time travel powers. She manages to "stop time" only in her head. No-one moved the bullet. Takano just missed because of her own Hinamizawa Syndrome. Rika believes Hanyuu because she's young and gullible. Like Maria. She buys into whatever her insane friend tells her and that's why she too remembers the previous world. This is hinted at by the similarities in Maria and Rika's mood swings. All along, Hanyuu was insane and Rika was gullible. They both just got lucky guesses regarding who the mastermind was (probably as a result of Bern's miracle).

Of course, you can take my attempt at solving it with a grain of salt. The true solution may be something completely different. In any case, I hope you've enjoyed my explanation of what the Logic Error of Higurashi was.

Hanyuu's presence was foreshadowed as early as Onikakushi-hen in a minor line by Keiichi. Her true colors were forshadowed as early as Watanagashi-hen. Hanyuu being a goddess doesn't violate Knox's 2nd by virtue of "the heart" of it being about involvement in the crime (Hanyuu's 100% innocent). Her role in the story is to explain the howdunnit of all the alternate timelines, thus her having other "chronomancy" powers makes perfect sense. Her refusal to manifest in previous kaekras from a naturalistc perspective is most likely due to an anxiety disorder. I'd hedge my bets on Avoidant Personality Disorder as a result of a complex over her horns. There's also bonus material in the DS version that outright states that Hanyuu really is 1000 years old. For the most part, the scrapbooks were basically a really nasty act of trolling by Takano that pushes the protagonist that read them into insanity. They're only true in the sense of "kernals of truth within the web of lies".

Higurashi Ended in the Witches Sides Victory: A Theory Via Analysis

Within this analytical theory thing I'm going to explain that the Hinamizawa Gameboard was won, not by the human side, but by the witches side. To do that, we have to look at a few key arguments and how they all fit together to show that the most likely outcome was victory in the witches favour. How I plan to demonstrate these arguments is first deconstructing the whole of the Hinamizawa Gameboard and then using these pieces as building blocks to, more or less, prove that the game ended in the witches favour.

The Pieces

To begin with, let's start by what's known about the gameboard. Arguably, the most important thing we know is who the pieces were and what side of the gameboard they were on. Well, at least who the main two pieces were. We can develop what sides they were on from that easily enough though.

The first piece is Rika Furude. She is, in a sense, our protagonist piece. She's the one fighting against her fate and such. But her role isn't that interesting. What IS interesting is her story and what we can conclude from it. The first thing we have about Rika's backstory is that she is the "reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama". Now, what this means is that she has certain abilities and attributes. For example, the ability to see Hanyu or the ability to recall memories of the previous world. Hanyu herself is a strange character too. She's Oyashiro-Sama herself, after all. Which means, following the rules Umineko discussed, she shouldn't even exist. But I'll get into that later. For now, let's leave it with the important facts I've discussed here.

Next is the piece of the other side, Miyo Takano. Takano seems at first a perfect piece for the witch. She's creepy and she has a fetish for the unknown and mysterious. But, on second glance, she's definitely not fitting. She's a researcher trying to explain the curse. In fact, her whole life has been explaining the curse. Beyond that, she's the first one to introduce us to human culprit theories. From the very start, she's been adamantly against the idea of Oyashiro's curse and the supernatural explanation. Beyond that, she is literally the human culprit theory. She's the human explanation for everything.

So, considering that, which side makes more sense for the two sides in this? I think, without a doubt, Rika would have to be witches side. As for Takano? She fits much better onto the humanside, don't you think?

The Metaworld Characters/The Players

Now let's take our minds off the board and see who our metaworld players are. The metaworld members who are fighting in this battle. Now, not much is known about the witches involved, sadly. However, Umineko has hinted enough for us to gain enough hints to explain who would probably be involved and how.

The first witch we have confirmed to be involved is Bernkastel. This isn't just a hinted thing or anything either, she is literally in Higurashi. We've read her poems each game, we've seen her actually in the game talking with Rika... She is definitely part of the metaworld of the Hinamizawa gameboard. But what is her purpose? Is she the gamemaster, for example? I have my own views, however they aren't strongly hinted at enough for me to put them into my analysis without tainting the argument. So lets take what WAS hinted at in Umineko about her role. There are some things we do know about Bernkastel's pre-Umineko days. She was the miko of Featherine Augustus Aurora. She's beaten Lambdadelta in a witches game before. She was in logic error. She was a piece on a gameboard at one point. These little facts may seem like nothing at first, but they become important later on.

The next witch we can state was part of Higurashi with certainty is Lambdadelta (geddit?). It is a confirmed, and canon, fact that Lambdadelta granted Takano's wish to be a god. Hence, she interacted with the Hinamizawa gameboard. Which means that she had to, at some level, have been involved in the game.

There is one other witch who MAY have been there, and in fact probably was, and that is Featherine Augustus Aurora. The reason I feel we can suspect that she was involved lies in two knowns. One, the existence of Hanyu. Hanyu looks strikingly similar to Aurora. In a sense, Hanyu looks like young Aurora. Or maybe it's just the hair that creates the same look. In either case, Hanyu still bears resemblance to Aurora. And as has been shown in Umineko, if there's one thing witches love to do it's make their main pieces look like them. Secondly, we know Bernkastel was the Miko of Aurora. there's no way a master would just ignore a game that her miko was heavily involved in.

Now, things start to come together. I feel it's hinted that the game Bernkastel was a piece on was Higurashi (where she may or may not have been Rika). In fact, we even see her on that gameboard in two instances. One, where she talks to Rika at the start of Massacre Arc. And secondly in the secret ending of Festival Accompaniment arc where she saves Takano and her family leading to a good and happy world. So, in that case who was the gamemaster? That would, most likely be Featherine Augustus Aurora. I can base this claim on the nature of Mikos. In Umineko, we only see one instance of someone becoming a miko. And that is Ange. Now, Ange is a piece on the gameboard. She isn't a witch or any kind of meta creature. And that makes sense. After all, a miko should never be more powerful than he master. So, in Featherine's case, shouldn't she have picked her miko as a piece on the gameboard?

But who was she versing? Who was her opponent? Well, that's a tricky question which I'll have to get to later since it requires me to go into a two cases type comparison revolving around certain assumptions.

The Logic Error

If we then take Bernkastel as being a piece on the Hinamizawa gameboard, then the logic error she had to face when she was a piece must have taken place on that gameboard. After all, pieces don't seem to be reused for other gameboards.

Now, this logic error is a very important piece of evidence in the revealing of how the Hinamizawa Gameboard must have ended in the witches favour. Firstly, let's look at what the definition of a logic error is:

"A logic error is the worst mistake that a Game Master can make. A Logic Error occurs when there is a contradiction in the tale that the Game Master created."

There's a very important point here. Namely that it's a contradiction in the tale that the Gamemaster created. In other words, it's a fault on the witches part. But Bernkastel was the one who went through it, wasn't she? (Yes, ignore the fact she's not the gamemaster. It's stated in game that the actual gamemaster just delegated the logic error to her.) And she is most definitely on the side of Rika. Hence, the theory presented above that Rika is a piece for the witch becomes much more solidified. The logic error can only have existed if Rika was a piece for the witches. (As for what that logic error was? I have a theory and evidence and everything, but it's not directly related to my argument here so I'll leave it out.)

The Enemy/The Opponent

This is a tricky subject because it depends on whether I'm right or not. If Rika was on the witches side, then it is feasible that the challenger of the human side was Lambdadelta. Otherwise, it's witch/person X. But I am confident that Lambda really was Featherine's opponent.

Let me start by explaining why Lambda only works as the opponent in the case where Rika was a witches piece. It is a stated fact, that Lambda had Higurashi spoiled for her. This is something that can't be denied. However, the definnition of spoiled greatly changes depending which side won. See, this all depends on one major thing. The fact that Higurashi isn't just a book in that world. It's a game of deduction. Or, at the least, a mystery story. Now, this is greatly different to a normal story or text or film. Because it depends on a single major thing. And that is the solution. Mysteries, riddles, games of deduction... They are all dependent on the solution. If the solution to it isn't revealed to it in the text (and the solution actually does exist outside of it), well, then there's still something to be spoiled on even if the stories over. And this is especially true with mystery GAMES. See, if the game ended in a victory for the witch there would be no solution revealed in the game. Which means, that the human side opponent would still have something to be spoiled on. All Bern would have to do to spoil Higurashi for Lambda would be to tell her the solution (after the games been won), before Lambda could work it out herself. In effect, spoiling her. However, if Rika was a piece of the human side, then it is impossible for Lambda to have been the opponent. There would have been nothing to be spoiled on.

But, still, that doesn't mean Lambda was Berns opponent, does it? That's true. However, there is evidence that she was. First off, we know that she lost to Bernkastel in a game. Since Bern (or Bern's side) won Higurashi, it's quite plausible that it was the Hinamizawa gameboard she referred to. But that's still a weak argument. No. My real argument comes from the one known fact about Lambda's involvement with the gameboard. Helping Takano.

Why would Lambdadelta help Takano? That makes no sense, really. Lambda was shown in Ep 8 of Umineko to have what pretty much amounted to a "don't screw with stuff unless you're part of it" policy. She's just an observer! So, even if she was on the side of the opponent, there's no way she'd have done something as drastic as to actually effect the gameboard herself. That is... unless she WAS the opponent. Then her action not only makes sense but explains a lot about Taknao's life. Takano, as a piece of the human side, was perfectly created for that. She IS the human culprit theory, as created by LAMBDADELTA'S power of certainty. This is a canon thing too. Lambda was the one who granted Takano's wish to be a god In other words, Takano wouldn't have been able to destroy Hinamizawa and basically fulfill the whole human theory side without Lambda. And doesn't a lot of her life come out of events that just happened out of nowhere or are strange coincedence? She remembers Hifumi Takano's number at just the right moment. the lightning misses her. The coin was in the slot. This is even lampshaded, but Takano attributes it to god. But, what if it wasn't god? What if it was a witch with the aim of creating her own human explanation for the game. Now, I know Battler didn't ever try this strategy but that doesn't mean that it's not a valid one. Remember, Battler isn't a witch. He doesn't have the powers they do. His method of playing, as well as the limits of his power, are much different. In fact, we KNOW witches can do this kind of trick. Remember ep 6? Who was the culprit then? Erika. In other words, the human side became the culprit and thus solved the mystery by making their own human culprit theory out of themselves.

How the witch side won

But how DID the witch side win, then? After all, Takano was the culprit. The paranoia and such were a disease. The murders were all explained. Well, that's where a certain technique shown in Umineko comes in. Namely shifting to a different mystery and thus keeping the mystery and the magic alive. The first time we saw this technique was in Ep 3 where Eva used, not a murder, but a case of "why did person do X?" as the mystery. Then in ep6 we see the best use of it. All the murders are explained. We know the truth of them all and the truth of what happened before they got murdered. But Battle still wins. How? The mystery is shifted to a single element of the crime. Namely, the locked room. The exact same technique is applied here. The mystery of the murders is solved. The mystery of the curse is solved. What is left? A single shred of the overall mystery. What is Oyashiro-sama? Hanyu is a never explained being. Her powers are demonstrated clearly. She IS a god. She stops time. She remembers previous worlds. She is magic. And unless she can be explained, naturally, the witches side wins. Hanyu remains unexplained to the end, and Lambda's piece, Takano, is defeated and reduced to a mess. And thus, after struggling for a while, Lambda must have given up. And with that the game ended in the witches favour.

Afterword

I hope with my arguments above, I've helped to explain just why exactly the game of Higurashi must have ended in the witches victory. To help, I have also comprised a bit of a time line. It's nothing major and it's based off assumptions as well as the above argument but... It might come in useful:

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed my argument essay thing. Also, if you have any questions about Higu that my argument raises or your interested ina nything you think I might know, please ask me.

The theory might be jossed by explanations given in the "Dice Killing" chapter. This is a kaekra created through the actions of Fredrica Bernkastel, who in "Massacre" is confirmed to be NOT the same person as Rika. The events of that chapter reveal "Trollkastel's" origins as being Rika's Enemy Without. This excludes Fredrica and Trollkastel from being the same person as well.

Demon Granny Oryou is nowhere near as nasty as she's portrayed.

Her real personality is closer to her daughter and granddaughter; she's simply very protective of her household name. So she has to act stubborn, but it's all just that, an act. For example:

Kicks her daughter out for marrying an unapproved man, but doesn't obstracize her or her daughters in most any other way;

Tries to kill real Shion at birth, but it's just an act. She expects to be stopped and told to work around the twins;

She sends Shion to a boarding school, but her punishment for her escaping is relatively minor (horrific, yes, hurtful, yes, fatal or permanent? Not in the slightest - real Yakuza would require fingers, not fingernails!). And she's not sent back. Her real reaction was probably closer to "took that scamp long enough! Why if I was her age, I'd have been out of there in a week!";

Add her acting all "we totally did it!" around the curse killers, when she herself wants the killers; the sale of the lots explicitly to bring in new blood; the way she acts towards the Houjous in Massacre and Festival Accompainment. She was never truly nasty - she just had to act that way because that's what's expected of a family in power.

Both of them have that sort of blank stare, and are unafraid to mess with destiny itself or kill people, and both have the intent of becoming a God. She's crazy because it's In the Blood. Well, that and Hinamizawa Syndrome.

Rika is in Purgatory, She is being purged of the sin of Sloth.

Almost every single arc in the series ends with Rika's gruesome death. The cycle does not end until she realizes that fate is not written in stone. Before, she would simply waste time until the "inevitable" end arrives. Realizing that actions really count is an important step in her purging.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni is actually the Higurashi main characters' game of 13 Dead End Drive.

Rika is already present in some form in the game. The club's whole purpose is to play things like board games, and their imaginations are no doubt stimulated from having seen actual murders (and having it happen to themselves). Sure, that board game doesn't exist in 1983 Japan, but maybe they invented it.

Status: Very nearly Jossed. This hasn't been completely confirmed yet, but events in Umineko suggest that it's the other way around.

In the anime of Umineko, Maria is seen watching an episode of Higurashi (the one where Hanyuu joins their class). In addition, Battler quotes Keichii's mother in the Visual Novel and Maria is shown watching TV with characters that look suspiciously like Rika and Takano.

I always just thought that that was just a shoutout.

From what I have seen, it appears that Umineko happens after Higurashi. In fact, the events in Higurashi may have given birth to Frederica, a main "player" in Umineko.

Oh it's been jossed alright. Battler refers to a book called Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni during the first game, quoting a line from Tatarigoroshi-hen when Keiichi and his mom are discussing "the perfect crime".

Two: Miyuki Soramachi is investigating the same case Akasaka was investigating.

Three: They must be the same because no two people in Higurashi share the same name (except for Akira Toudou in Onisarashi-hen and Akira in Yogoishi-hen).

Confirmed in the game.

Rika is a witch.

In Umineko: When They Cry, the Witch Species is divided up into 3 subspecies: Witches, who can possess immense power in one world that is considered to be its dominion; Creators, who can "create a one in a world of nothingness."; and Voyagers, who can travel freely in between the different fragments. While it is true that Frederica Bernkastel isn't the same person as Rika Furude, nobody ever said that Rika wasn't a witch; so thus, she must be a Voyager, and Hanyuu a Creator.

It seems as though the witch Frederica considers Rika to be akin to an alternate personality (happens at the beginning of Minagoroshi-hen in the manga).

This might actually be correct if we go through the events that occur in Saikoroshi-hen:

Rika: It's time for me to give up being a witch... I must return to being Rika Furude, rather than the witch Bernkastel.

Considering the existence of Eva-Beatrice, who is both separate and the same as Eva, Lambdadelta is following Bernkastel for beating her, and Lambdadelta was helping Takano, it's not impossible that Bernkastel could be a separate person who originated as part of Rika.

According to Word of God, Bernkastel is a representation of all the Rikas who never made it past the June of 1983.

Possibly the icing on the cake: Rika most definitely has some Witch-like powers, though they only see use in one instance (though it's only explicitly shown in the manga, not the anime). It's when Takano is about to shoot Hanyuu; when Hanyuu stops time to see that the bullet won't miss, Rika somehow moves despite time being stopped and changes the bullet's direction herself. This happens before Saikoroshi-hen, and thus before she gives up on being a witch, so she might even have known what she was all along and just didn't think her power could be of any help until that crucial moment.

When Hanyuu allowed herself to be killed to bring peace of mind to the people of Hinamizawa (or whatever it was called way back when), she fulfilled the requirements necessary to become an Avenger-class servant. When the villagers began to revere her as Oyashirou-sama her status shifted from "human heroic spirit" to "lesser divine spirit" by whatever system governs these things in the Nasuverse, whereupon she was kicked out of the Throne of Heroes and returned to Hinamizawa in a spirit form, where she remains, unknown and unseen, until Rika is born many years later. Dark Hanyuu is the result of having her legend warped by what the villagers believe her to be, turning her into "Oyashiro-sama" on some level without actually altering her personality. Her Noble Phantasm is that demonic sword she wields in Daybreak, and she bestowed that Scythe onto Rika as well.

Furthermore the Church knows this and has sent Ciel undercover as a teacher to observe.

Hanyuu would probably be of the "Avenger" class, as she was elevated to Divine Spirit via a sacrifice. However, she is a more perfect Heroic Spirit than Angra Mainyu, since she was not summoned experimentally and she was completely willing to let herself be sacrificed.

Has Mion really never killed anyone?

In Watanagashi-hen, isn't it possible that it really was all Mion's doings? After all, is there nothing I know of that guarantees that Meakashi-hen is the exact same thing. Perhaps Meakashi-hen merely shows that the exact same events could occur by either of the sisters.

Everything that I have ever read on the subject has said that Watanagashi and Meakashi are perfectly identical in terms of events, ergo the murderer is the same person in both arcs. There is some confusion as to whether or not Rika commits suicide-by-knife in both arcs, (the anime opening to episode 5 shows that she does, but the game seems to indicate that Shion tortured her to death), but Shion is definitely the murderer in both Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen.

No, they're not identical. In Watanagashi, Keiichi knocks over the motercycles and Shion rescues him. In Meakashi, Shion knocks over the motorcycles and Keiichi rescues her. I'm not sure what this means, but it's something I keep noticing. Any thoughts?

Everyone does say that they are the same, but is there any canon material or Word of God that agrees?

No Word of God that I can name off the top of my head, but the evidence that it's Shion in Watanagashi is pretty overwhelming, and there's probably a TIP or two that will confirm this. Recall, for instance, "Mion" shaking the ladder while Keiichi stands on it during the search for Rika and Satoko while ranting about Satoshi, something Mion would have had no reason to do.

Thwarted in Minagoroshi-hen, when Frederica and Rika both state that Shion is the murderer in both.

Indubitably, but until they are published they might as well not exist.

I also saw that, but it was on The Other Wiki and in need of citation so taking that with a grain of salt.

I can offer two explanations for why she has never been seen killing: Either she did it first and learned from her mistakes in alternate universes faster, or Rika initiated some events that resolve her homicidal tendencies, such as the game club.

Matsuribayashi-hen showed that Mion herself started the game club to help Satoshi and Satoko through their time with their abusive aunt and uncle. The biggest problem I have with this theory is why then did she not remember her "sins" in Minagoroshi-hen when everyone else did? Really, unless we get any information that she has killed - through concrete TIPS or otherwise - we have to assume she hasn't.

It's never hinted that Rika was tortured in Watanagashi-hen, however, Shion playing Mion claims to have tortured Rika, just like she does in Meakashi-hen, the only difference is that we see that Rika kills herself in the chapter.

You're all forgetting an important point: The subject's own mental state, stress level and decisions may be factors and may be enough to save them in some cases, but the insanity is triggered by leaving Hinamizawa. Keiichi for the funeral, Rena when moving, Shion when ostracized, Satoko and Satoshi and their relatives when their parents dragged them along on vacation or whatever, etcetera. I can't come up with any compelling reason Mion would ever leave Hinamizawa, ever, even for a day or two.

Keep in mind, though, "the insanity is triggered by leaving Hinamizawa" is something that was, in all likelihood, originally said by the same person as "Oyashiro was an alien doctor"; and there seem to be a few places where the theory breaks down (like where Senator Sonozaki presumably has been exposed, is absent from Hinamizawa for extended periods of time, and shows absolutely no signs of manifesting symptoms).

Also, according to Hinageshi-hen, Mion attends prep school outside Hinamizawa, and is fully capable of developing symptoms, even if they are a bit unusual.

Remember, though, that all of the symptoms begin as "paranoia which seems like depression". If one is careful in the treatment of the early symptoms, and doesn't become agitated, it doesn't spread. Also, I am curious whether the pills that Rena ceased taking when her mother left were Irie's Hinamizawa treatments. If they were, then anyone living outside of Hinamizawa who's careful and takes their medicine should have been asymptomatic. Similarly, all of the actual going nuts happened due to acute stress, rather than the leaving itself.

Disproved in the games. Mion is mentioned as being the only person who's never snapped.

... Wasn't Mion responsible for the entire Watanagashi arc? I thought I understood that until the end where it was claimed that Mion had been found in the well and that other (blonde) lady had been dead and burnt before she was wondering around the storage room (which makes no sense whatsoever)... and Shion suicided... which, irrespective of which was which, would account for both Mion and Shion being dead by the end... and then one of them (Mion, apparently) showing up right at the finish despite that. I had no idea what was going on then, but then no matter how you look at it, it still seems like Mion was responsible for it all... and I wondered if she was doing the vengeful spirit routine or something.

Well, that's because Mion was actually Shion pretending to be Mion.

It makes perfect sense for the body to have died before the storage room visit if it wasn't really Takano's body. Clues to that within the arc:

Leaving the storage room, only Tomitake and Shion heard the sound of a girl jumping on the floorboards. Hearing Oyashirosama's footsteps is a symptom of L5 syndrome. Also circumstantial support for Shion to be the one to go Ax-Crazy.

In the VN, the Scrapbook series of TIPS continue. It could only be written by someone who trespassed on the storage room, wasn't a member of the three families, and was still adding research to the scrapbook up to Keiichi's confrontation with Shmion.

Shion playing Mion never shows up at the end of Wtanagashi-hen, both Mion and Shion are dead, it's just a hallucination K1 has, he dies of a heart attack.

Related to the above: possible sequence of events in the "worlds unseen"

Keiichi burns down the house trying to cook, but survives. Mion convinces her family to let him room with them. At some point, Mion flirts with Keiichi, but she mistakes his reaction for him chasing Rena. Shion comments on how cute they look together, but it comes out sounding like a proposed If I Can't Have You that she might follow through on. Mion ends up killing Shion to protect Keiichi. Events with Rika and Satoko are similar to in Watanagashi-hen/Meakashi-hen, but Mion thinks they suspect her and offs them to prevent word from getting out. Also, she doesn't leave the knife sitting out for Rika to use to "leave". She then pulls a Murder the Hypotenuse, only to find out that Keiichi was interested in her rather than Rena, and loses it over how trivial her reasoning for the murders was, proceeding to go after him. Thus explaining why Rika gets Satoko to intervene in Tatarigoroshi-hen and prevent the entire sequence of events, which in turn explains why Mion doesn't remember: the last time it happened was centuries ago.

Rena is biologically related to Dr. Irie.

Two characters with reddish-brown hair, an obsession with "cute" things (and/or people), and the ability to become unusually mature when the situation calls for it. A coincidence? I think not!

Are you saying that Rena's mother was an adulteress that would sleep with men she was not married to unprotected and get pregnant by them? Reina does look more like Irie then her own father.

I for one always suspected that Mr. Ryuuguu was not Rena's biological father. However, because he is kindhearted, he treats her as a true daughter rather than vilifying her for the actions of her mother.

Maybe they're cousins or something. While they do look a lot alike, and they have similar personalities, the wiki states Rena to be 15 and Irie to be anywhere from his late twenties to early thirties; they're a little too close in age for the "Irie is Rena's father" theory to be entirely credible.

Expanding on the above post, while the age difference sort of eliminates the chance of Irie being Rena's father (unless he seriously liked older women as a kid), they're not too far apart in age to have been siblings. Irie's family was shown to be rather poor; Rena could have been given up for adoption so she could be properly cared for.

If he is in his early thirties, he could have been an extremely young father.

Going by the first episode of Kai, she isn't jumping back in time when she retries the events of that June; each and every ruined Hinamizawa continues to exist in an alternate timeline. She's repeatedly creating new versions of Hinamizawa to get massacred, with no clue how to stop it from happening - and going by her comments at the start of Kai's arcs, she could have stopped retrying at any time.

I got the impression that she wasn't so much creating new worlds as much as traveling between existing alternate universes. Of course, that would mean that even if she stops Takano in the one universe of Matsuribayashi-hen, there are still an infinite number of universes where Takano's plan succeeds...

Well, Rika and Hanyuu are selfish immortal loli's, and content to stay in the one universe that works as opposed to fixing every other universe.

And how exactly are they supposed to fix the other universes when they barely survived a world where everything went their way?

Fixing a universe was a backup plan/last resort to "Travel between alternate Hinamizawas until I find one where nobody is crazy". They underestimated the size of the Timey-Wimey Ball and Rika ran out of extra lives.

Trying to "fix" all the other universes wouldn't work anyways, even if it were possible. The quantum physics take on alternate universes states that each and every action and choice made by human beings spawns an alternate universe for every choice and action that wasn't selected (or as my science fiction teacher put it, "all possibilities exist simultaneously"). You can have hundreds of Onikakushi-hen timelines where the only difference is Keiichi choosing to wear a different shirt one day, multiplied by the number of shirts he owns and multiplied again for each day in the loop where that shirt could be chosen. It's an exercise in futility to even think of changing all the infinite universes where Takano's plan succeeds, much less visiting them. And even if she tried, Rika's presence would create new choices and possibilities in the world she visited, creating still more Bad End universes where her attempts to fix things backfire horribly.

on a more positive note, using the previous comment, that means that Rika didn't just win in that one. In the final world in Kai, Each day that, using the above example, each day Keiichi chooses a shirt to wear, and that being multiplied each day, and that having no effect on Rika winning, then all those worlds also had Rika winning. Math Attack (The amount of worlds that Rika would win in would be, in math terms, the Limit of x goes to infinity, Rika wins in x/2600x worlds. It would not be reduced though, unless you say that Rika wins in 1/2600 of infinite worlds. (2600 is near the maximum amount of worlds there can be. 100 years (about) times 26 sets of 2 weeks in a year (that is the shortest time that she was in any of them), 2600 maximum loops)

Rika is only imagining Hanyuu

More specifically, Hanyuu is a personality Rika has attributed to the Hinamizawa syndrome parasite she's infected with. The time jumps are caused by her influence over that parasite, that parasite's influence over all of Hinamizawa as the "queen," and some crazed Serial Experiments Lain-level reality warping.

I'm pretty sure this one's jossed by the game's TIPS; apparently the queen theory itself is jossed by the fact that the villagers didn't have mass freak-outs after Rika was killed ahead of schedule in Watanagashi-hen and Meakashi-hen.

Also disproved by other two details: one, victims of Hinamizawa Syndrome level 5 can hear her footsteps and her incessant apologizing because their senses are sharpened by the paranoia, and two, she takes on a literal physical persona in Matsuribayashi.

Saikoroshi-hen really happened and Hanyuu was hiding the truth from Rika when she said that it was All Just a Dream.

Why would Hanyuu prevent herself from accessing the world that Rika was currently in on purpose? She obviously has enough power to exist, if not to resurrect Rika again. Rika's mother was the eighth reincarnation of Hanyuu in that world, but who says that Hanyuu was the original Oyashiro-sama in that world to begin with? Rika could only talk to Hanyuu because the stone gave her some sort of access/communication (similar to Scrying) to the world whence she had come from. The only reason this never happened in other arcs is because Hanyuu was there all the time; Saikoroshi-hen being the lone exception.

Lastly, can you really believe that Hanyuu, the Hanyuu we all know, would trick Rika into killing her own mother just to hammer in the aesop she wanted? Doubt it.

The game suggests that she actually chooses staying in the other world, but wakes up in the original one anyway, with no memories of that last day. This heavily suggests it really was an illusion caused by Hanyuu.

In the visual novel Rika remembers her hands being coated in her mother's blood, so she did choose to leave that world.

Maybe Hanyuu wanted to be Anvilicious about it and took it a bit too far?

The only thing that's real is Rika getting hit by that truck before Saikoroshi-hen and this is all Rika's last dream.

Theh shouldn't just Saikoroshi be a dream?

Higurashi-Rei is a series of dreams the characters are having.

It's the only way they can make any sense for one matter (call me crazy, but I would not act all chummy towards someone who, oh, tried to kill my best friends). For another, the dreams could possibly represent how the characters are recovering mentally and emotionally from going through the same 100-year-or-so period, and how they are looking forward to being able to get on with their lives.

She somehow became an Umineko-type witch after her mortal death, but didn't know it so just decided to define herself as "god".

This is supported by Lamda-Delta's memoirs wherein she defines a god as a being with no restrictions (including the restriction of their own meaning) and thus a being who's existence no longer has any meaning. Hanyuu doesn't fit this definition and thus is not a god. It should be noted however that the idea that Hanyuu is a god was created by her descendants, she simply chose to go along with it.

Three words that are Umineko spoilers: Featherine Augustus Aurora.

More evidence in favor of this: Matsuribayashi-hen. She refers to the events of June 1983 as a "game", and her Immortal Immaturity seems to be a facade. It would seem that Fredrika's actions at the end were a way of Ret Goneing the entire series as a way of saying "Screw you, Hanyuu. I don't lose."

...probably sealed under Onigafuchi swamp. They both cause terrifying paranoia and hallucinations that can cause people to turn Ax-Crazy as they get close, with delusions like a strong impression that someone is coming after you or an illusion that makes you think you're attacking something other than what you are. Only the throat-clawing is a direct consequence of the parasite, the effect of which is only noticeable when combined with the Kishin's influence. This is also part of why Hinamizawa Syndrome hasn't spread much; beyond the village, it's out of the affected area.

Satoko's uncle had Hinamizawa Syndrome and, left alone, would have killed her in any universe in which he reappeared

This doesn't seem like that much of a stretch. In the Massacre arc, Rena comments that she knows that they don't have much time left to save Satoko and Rika says that she's correct. Since if it just continued as it was already going there wouldn't be a time limit at all so much as "as soon as possible", they obviously both knew that Satoko was going to die if this kept up. Add to that the fact that he's been out of town for ages, and that when she finally asks for help he gets even more violent and seemingly tries to kill her, and it's a no-brainer.

Furthermore, the only reason he returned to Hinamizawa was because of his girlfriend getting murdered which would certanly cause a lot of stress. Also, given the grudge Hinamizawans hold against his family, and the fact that four members of his family were cursed in previous years, the decision to return to Hinamizawa doesn't seem like something a rational person would do.

Plausible, but he doesn't display enough paranoid tendencies. Even if he is, it's unlikely he'd be over lvl2 at most.

Had a fridge moment about this. You know the bankbook, the one with all the money from the gov't that Satoko isn't hiding. I don't think it exists. Satoko's father is shown complaining about how he won't get paid the money in Matsuribayashi-han, and he demands that Oryou pay him instead. So it's quite possible that it is just a delusion.

In Saikoroshi-hen, Rika's mom had known Hanyuu.

Since Rika's mom was the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama in that world, she would have been able to see Hanyuu just like Rika was able to in the other worlds. However, at some point in the past Rika's mom asked Hanyuu to make everybody start treating her like an ordinary girl (as opposed to treating her like the reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama). However, Hanyuu was unable to do so, and Rika's mom stopped believing in her and thus destroyed her. Much like what happened in Umineko: When They Cry with Ange and the Stakes. This brings us to...

Rika's mom allowed her to kill her.

While Rika was trying to kill her mom she explained what had happened to her in particular mentioning Hanyuu. Since Rika mentioned Hanyuu her mom knew she wasn't insane and furthermore realized that Hanyuu had been real Her desire for Rika to happy combined with guilt for not believing in Hanyuu drove her to allow Rika to kill her.

In the first world Rika existed in, Satoko died much earlier, and possibly, so did Irie.

If you look at Rika's conversation with Irie where she convinces him to examine her brain to cure Satoko, some of her Oracular Urchin-ness shows up again. If we assume that all instances of that were caused by the time loops and try to remove all of those from the scene, then Rika really should not have known what Irie was planning on doing - running away with Satoko. Even if she did, she would have lacked a lot of the arguments that she convinced him with. Because of that, the first time through, Irie did try to run away with Satoko. He may or may not have made it without getting caught, but he himself notes that Satoko really had no future even if he ran away with her - she was at L5 and would eventually die. Because Satoko wasn't around, the game club was never formed, and Rika grew up rather alone until her death.

This is one of the first things that Rika tried to change through the time loop - by telling Irie to experiment on her now that she knew what he'd tried to do, she was able to improve her worlds just a bit.

Furthermore, she knew that there would be problems if she let Takano poke around in her head. Hence why she states that she'll be fine if Irie's the one doing the operation.

In Rika's actual first loop, she didn't see the third year.

Takano went through with the plan earlier, because she thought Rika's mother could function as a backup Infection Queen. Rika tried a few methods to get out of this, like running away with Irie, until she hit upon the idea of convincing Takano that she was the only Infection Queen and killing her would trigger an outbreak; thus changing the timeframe from "Takano first starts manifesting symptoms" to "Takano decides to Kill 'em AllFor Science!".

There is some connection between Rika and Takano, possibly that they are somehow the same person.

"Why or Why Not" makes a surprising amount of sense if you assume that both of them are singing it.

Not really. It fits Rika much more than Takano. MUCH more.

Isn't a big point of Higurashi that there is no magic whatsoever, except for Hanyuu 'turning back time'?

Hanyuu is not Furude Hanyuu.

If you look at the final arc, she is quite obviously using the same trick Rika is. She only drops the facade when speaking to Takano alone (not even around Rika, of all people). Therefore, it stands to reason that there are things she is trying to deceive Rika about, and all information we get from her, directly or indirectly, is suspect. In fact, maybe...

The so-called "Perfect World" shown in Saikoroshi-hen / The Dice-Killing Chapter is the only real world.

This theory is put forward and detailed by TahYills over here as an Anti-Fantasy stance onHigurashi. Essentially, it holds that the world depicted in Saikoroshi-hen is the actual world, and the rest of the series an elaborate fantasy spun by Furude Rika.

Despite how this world is described as the "Perfect World", Rika's standing in this realm is less than ideal... but this is mainly due to her own actions. The "original" Rika of this ideal world is mentioned to have been rather standoffish, a bit prideful and selfish. Her childish ego is dealt a few blows when her few friends move away, leaving her vulnerable to being bullied by some of her classmates as revenge for her former behavior. And why did her friends transfer away? Because of the dam project, which will eventually flood the area where their town lies, meaning that everyone will eventually move away.

Having lost her control over her former friends/enforcers and faced with the knowledge that things would continue to change against her wishes, Rika constructs a twisted Escapist fantasy where she becomes the most important person in the world, with an invisible Goddess as her best friend. The world revolves around her so completely that if anything ever happens to her, her Goddess BFF will bend time and space to bring her back to life. Feeling deeply sorry for herself, Rika paints herself as a Tragic Heroine, jerked around by circumstances beyond her control.

In her fantasies, the dam project failed because most of the citizens rallied against it — and those who didn't oppose it, who disagreed with popular opinion/what Rika wished would have happened, are severely punished. This includes Sakoto, a girl who bullied her in real life; now their positions are reversed, with Sakoto an outcast, losing everyone she cared for, beaten, abused, and completely reliant on Rika's mercy and compassion. Since the real Mion wouldn't play with Rika, she pulled a Twin Switch, replacing her Mion with a nicer, more agreeable Mion and imagining the real Mion as an unstable Yandere. Even her own parents die in her fantasy just to make her more important and extra-sympathetic.

Hinamizawa Syndrome doesn't make sense as a disease because, again, it's all in her head. She makes it all up, imagining all these brutal murders and deaths that are all promptly negated by her handy-dandy Goddess best friend. A twisted game of make-believe, one that she loses herself in more and more as time goes on. This doesn't go unnoticed by her parents, who eventually start taking her to see doctors and therapists — leading to the conversations she has with the doctor in Saikoroshi-hen where she tells him bits and pieces of her fantasy world.

Eventually, she's given a chance to make things better; some of her classmates offer her the opportunity to start over and take a stab at friendship, while her worried parents show her more attention and concern. However, rather than make the best of reality, Rika chooses to utterly reject that reality and substitute her own, going to drastic measures to cement that rejection...

And how would you explain the arcs that focus on people Rika never met?

Simple. Rika has a rich imagination. She made up different characters to suit her needs. Like Keiichi — he's nothing but a Satoshi Expy, but with his personality tweaked to suit her purposes. The whole conspiracy and everyone in it got made up, too — note that in Saikoroshi-hen, they don't appear at all. Anyone who doesn't appear in Saikoroshi-hen exists only in her twisted escapist fantasy. Anything that focuses on them is just Rika fleshing out their backstories or toying with them. Like the first arc WE see — which definitely isn't the first story Rika's ever told herself about her own sick little world by a long shot — she imagines Keiichi coming to distrust the others, and being punished for not sticking by his friends and listening to, effectively, an adult who comes in and makes trouble, disrupting her vision of "how things should be". Much like how, in real life, she has to listen to the adults that rule her life and comply with their decisions and wishes, whether she wants to or not. Adults aren't just useless, they're disruptive, manipulative, and untrustworthy, with little regard for what 'mere children' think.

I shall destroy this theory with the red truth. Battler does not appear in Saikoroshi-hen. In Umineko no Naku Koro ni Episode X, Rika met Battler. Battler's existence has already been confirmed in red.

Yes, in the same way I take "In Tsumihoroboshi-hen, Rena killed Rina" to be an undisputed fact i.e. "In Story X, Event Y was shown". However, The claim I am trying to disprove is people who don't appear in Saikoroshi-hen don't exist. Battler does not appear in Saikoroshi-hen, Battler's existence has been confirmed in red. It does not matter whether Battler's meeting with Rika actually happened.

But saying that the characters of Rika's world who don't appear in Saikoroshi-hen don't exist,which appears to be what the OP intended to say,is still valid.After all, Umineko: When They Cry's world is stated by Word of God to be separate from the worlds of Higurashi: When They Cry.If we accept the concept of witches as people who snapped under the strain of reality and so went off to the insides of their heads to create their own realities and the plots overall as a type of metaphor, Battler can still exist whether or not he met with Rika and the OP's theory about Saikoroshi-hen can still hold.

Um, maybe I'm missing something, but how does Battler not showing up in Saikoroshi-hen disprove this? This WMG denies that the Mion of the Games Club is the real Mion. However, the Games Club Mion appears in Umineko X. Therefore, if this WMG is true, Umineko X is fictitious.

Saikoroshi-hen and all of the other arcs are works of fiction. Fiction Identity Postulate: All fiction is equally real. Any event that occurs only in a single person's mind is less real then any event that occurs outside that person's mind. Therefore, none of the arcs exist solely within Rika's mind.

It is, however, possible for a work to be fictitious within a fictional world.If this WMG is true, Umineko X is no more canonical than any Higurashi arc other than Saikoroshi-hen. In fact, given that Umineko-X!Battler is identical to a person that Rika has never met, aged three years from the time of Higurashi, this WMG being true would make all of Umineko probably not canon, and the red and blue truths therefore meaningless!

The story Higurashi: When They Cry exists within the Umineko universe.It was written by Furude Rika (or someone who knew her) based on her experiences (regardless of whether they were real of delusions). Due to the Devil's Proof, I refuse to explain how she has able to get a story published within three years. The narrator of Umineko X chose to incorporate characters from Higurashi into Umineko X. Thus, even if the above WMG is true it is possible for the events of Umineko to be canon, and thus the red and blue truths retain their meaning!

That is not how the Devil's Proof works! The Devil's Proof simply excuses you from proving that Higurashi is not a dream sequence, hallucination, or fantasy. It does not give you license to propose an unexplained and unlikely element in your own hypotheses. Now, how did a child (and possibly a murderer at that) get a book the length of Higurashi: When They Cry published and widely read inside three years?

Battler's theory using the Small Bombs is a valid Blue Truth. Therefore the Devil's Proof does give me license to propose an unexplained and unlikely element in my own hypotheses.

Battler was incompetent when he tried that.And show me an example of an "invalid Blue Truth", or otherwise prove that the Blue Truth is checked for any kind of validity, logical consistency included.

I withdraw my complaint, but propose this change to your plausible theory: In Himatsubushi, Akasaka wrote a book about Rika's case. It is unknown which, if any, arc of Higurashi preceeds Umineko.The in-universe work Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni is Akasaka's account of the events of Higurashi, possibly based on speaking with Rika.

At the very least, it's certainly reasonable to say that the rules of the universe that Umineko follows match the rules of Saikoroshi-hen, and not with any other Higurashi fragment. It'd be interesting to see what would happen on Rokkenshima in one of the other Higurashi fragments, seeing as how shonen drama rules would apply.

Like the above, Rika/Satoko escaped the bullying by making the Games Club. Eventually, it got boring, so she decided she wanted to play a game that she didn't already know, making Takano/Lambdadelta so that she'd have someone other than furniture to play against, and Hinamizawa Syndrome so that her opponent would be a challenge. Unfortunately, it got... a little out of hand, so her mentor, Hanyuu, engineered a reset. This makes Rika the obvious witch, but Satoko could be as well; she just doesn't want to use out-of-character knowledge, so she gives it to Rika.

Another Anti-Fantasy stance: Onikakushi-hen is the only true arc.

Mion was pressured by her family into trying to kill Keiichi. Ooshi figured this out and warned Keiichi to be on his guard, setting off his paranoia. Following the "door incident", Rena and Mion spoke to Irie, coming to the conclusion that their friend needed to be kept from harming himself or others. The three of them contacted Keiichi's parents, getting their approval. Mion offered to keep him sedated until preparations can be made, thinking that this will keep him alive while getting her family off her back. Unfortunately, Keiichi had a reaction to the drug used and lapsed into a coma. The end of Onikakushi was Keiichi beginning to dream while reaching for a bat. Ever since then, people have been walking in and telling Keiichi about things that have been going on with them, and the Games Club meetings moved into his room.

Takano heard about someone burning an extra sacrifice and decided that it would be wise to lie low. Her appearance at the Watanagashi festival was to say goodbye before she left town.

Unable to believe that Mion would try to kill him, Keiichi created Shion as a sort of "nice Mion". He later overheard Mion arguing with Oryou and revised his opinion of her.

Rather than Satoko living with Rika, the reverse is true: Rika moved in with Satoko after her parents died.

Teppei is actually a decent father figure to Satoko and Rika. His abuse is Keiichi's interpretation of a Tsundere with an Elektracomplex delivering a rant about how he doesn't care about her and may as well move out with Rina.

The "poor, persecuted Keiichi" fixes on Rika as the most "innocent" of the club, turning her into his Sympathetic Sue.

Rena eventually gives up on Keiichi ever recovering and finds someone else. Keiichi views this as "betraying" him in Tsumihoroboshi.

Minagoroshi was the result of Irie trying to shock Keiichi awake. Takano has returned by this point, and Keiichi fixates on her voice as the cause of his pain.

Matsribyashi was Keiichi making one final effort to break out of the nightmare. He succeeds, and awakens to see older versions of the Games Club (plus two other members, Battler and Hanyuu) playing Old Man, with Mion playing his hand. He croaks out the words "Second from the right", and there is suddenly a lot of hugging and crying.

At some point, Akane introduced Mion to a man about her age from another family with Yakuza connections, Ushiromiya Battler. They don't really hit it off, but Battler does join the Games Club. Umineko X was the result of Battler telling stories about some of the things his family gets up to.

Hanyuu is actually a distant cousin of Rika's. Rena does, in fact, go into "Take It Home Mode" over the horns she wears as a cosplay.

Eventually, Keiichi tells the others about his crazy dreams. Rika, by then either a mangaka or studying to become one, says that it might make a good story. Battler has some ideas for a sequel.

An Anti-Mystery stance on Higurashi

The "Hinamizawa Syndrome" hypothesis is wrong. There is no parasite affecting the people of Hinamizawa, and the Curse of Oyashiro-Sama is real. Hanyuu is a witch pretending to be a god. Takano is an avatar of Oyashiro-sama, taking vengeance on those who break the rules and leave the village.

Anti-Fantasy for everyone!

Mion: Watanagashi is the only true arc. The rest of it is her telling herself "they deserved it" and then, not buying that herself, "it wasn't my fault".

Hinegashi-hen is explicitly Mion's dream, therefore this is the most plausible Anti-Fantasy theory.

Okay, if Hinageshi is the only true arc, what was the Great Hinamizawa Disaster (which was implied to happen in this arc) and what prompted Mion to dream the other arcs?

Natural disaster. She dreamt the other arcs for the reasons that were outlined above. She eventually comes to terms with the fact she really did kill her friends, but she also believes all of her dreams thus far have been real and thus Hinegeshi-hen is the arc where she overcomes Rule X.

Hmph, plausible, I suppose except thatthere is no indication that Mion killed anyone in Hinageshi.Mion would not have dreamed the "justification" arcs if she had no memory of killing the others.

Rena: Tsumihoroboshi-only, and in Anachronic Order. After reading Document 34, she starts simulating a Hinamizawa Syndrome outbreak (possibly with the rest of the club). She eventually reaches the conclusion that the only way it wouldn't be an unmitigated disaster is if someone gassed the village shortly after it started.

Shion: Matsuribayashi. Rika triggers a bit of mass hysteria, but everyone eventually calms down. Shion finds Satoshi and starts reading him the book "Higurashi: When They Cry", replacing characters in it with ones he knows.

Takano: Minagoroshi. All of the other arcs are examples she uses to get support from Tokyo.

Even more Anti-Fantasy/Mystery

Hinamizawa syndrome isn't a real disease and it isn't supernatural - everyone just has anxiety and/or depression. The symptoms of the syndrome often coincide with those of both anxiety and depression and also post-traumatic distress syndrome. For example, Hinamizawa syndrome always becomes worse in the characters suffering from it because they don't go to anyone else for help, a point explored in Minagoroshi-hen. Anxiety can also cause itching on any part of the body. Scratching damages the skin and causes it to itch more. In real life, it almost never gets that bad, but this is a work of fiction we're talking about here. Often, the characters end up having dark thoughts without even considering a more reasonable explanation. These fantasies will then spiral out of control in their minds, becoming so convincing that the patient will believe it's true themselves, a trait common amongst sufferers of anxiety and depression. This is all made worse because they are repeating the "bad worlds" continuously for over 100 years, which subconsciously makes the main characters afraid that something terrible is going to happen. Already psychologically unstable, it only takes the slightest push to send one or more of them over the edge.

People specific reasoning:

The general population develop a level of anxiety from constantly being afraid of the wrath of Oyashiro-sama, an Omnipotent deity that in their minds could punish them at any moment for any slight against him/her.

Satako develops depression from the guilt she feels from killing her parents and anxiety from the abuse she suffers at the hands of her aunt and uncle.

Satoshi develops depression because of his parents' deaths, and again, anxiety/ptsd from abuse.

Keiichi was a loner at his school in Tokyo, leading to the depression that caused him to commit the crimes he did.

Mion & Shion both develop anxiety from living in fear of what their family might do to them, particularly because one of them was almost killed at birth, but also because of the rumors they hear from other residents - true or otherwise - and the torture devices they witness in the underground section of the Sonozaki compound.

Rika's parents both die. If that isn't bad enough, try the PTSD from living through over a century of waking nightmares.

Rena thinks her parents' divorce is her fault and develops depression. Troubled by this, she doesn't try to make friends in her new school in Ibaraki, and becomes an outcast. Having nobody to go to for support - her Mother directing her attentions to her new boyfriend - she goes nuts.

Possibly jossed. The possibility of a parasite that makes you go crazy is actually quite plasusible scientifically. Several mircobiologists have examined HS from a scientific standpoint and concluded that it is actually quite plausible.

The Hinamizawa Syndrome parasite can survive in conditions other than Hinamizawa.

The parasite is waterborne and lays eggs in the host's blood. The eggs can survive in a large number of conditions, but once the parasite matures, it's basically "locked in" to a specific set. Hence why the parasite starts triggering symptoms when someone moves away: it can't survive in the new place, so it tries to either go back to somewhere it can live or make sure that it has offspring.

Rather than being Infection Queens, the Furude family just has a genetic immunity.

The Furude and Sonozaki families are related.

First of all, compare the way Shion and Hinageshi!Mion act compared to the others. Shion (as demonstrated in Yoigoshi-hen) somehow manages to completely overcome the disease over 20 years, presumably without it triggering.

What about Hinageshi!Mion, then? Despite being in a similar situation to Onikakushi!Keiichi (thinking that the entire village was out to kill her), she seems to become depressed and is able to listen to reason rather than lashing out.

Also consider this: Despite almost certainly having left the village at least once (her husband is, after all, from outside), Akane never manifests symptoms despite reasonably stressful conditions. These seem to indicate that the Sonozaki family has some kind of resistance to Hinamizawa Syndrome.

Also, both families have nonstandard pigmentation as a default, in a series where such is actually pretty rare (the only other remotely exceptional color being blond).

Hinamizawa Syndrome was created to be a biological weapon.

The earliest documented incidents of Hinamizawa Syndrome were among World War II soldiers from Hinamizawa. Early during World War II, a biological weapon was developed and used against Hinamizawa. Fortunately, the weapon proved to be ineffective outside of Hinamizawa and thus plans to use it were abandoned. All of the soldiers who showed symptoms are one's who enlisted after this weapon was used.

The original June 1983 (whatever it was...) drew the notice of the Dark Powers, who duplicated the town of Hinamizawa and the surrounding countryside, repopulated it, and introduced the village to the Land of Mists. The darklord (whoever it is) is cursed to never see the end of June 1983; that's also when most of the story arcs occur, simply because in smaller domains the darklord's curse is harder to ignore. When the domain's borders are closed, anybody trying to leave is infected with Hinamizawa Syndrome.

Expanding on this with the Rika's-Perspective Anti-Fantasy stance above: When Rika sealed herself inside the imaginary Hinamizawa, she was trapped inside a domain where her desired world was made real, with the curse that she would suffer as she did in it. Keiichi is a visiting PC (possibly from d20 Modern) who helps "redeem" Rika, allowing her to realize that she cannot simply wish away her problems and must confront them directly.

Keiichi really was being targeted in Onikakushi-hen.

Keiichi dies for reasons unrelated to Takano's plans in Watanagashi-hen, Tatarigoroshi-hen, and the alternate ending of Meakashi-hen. Keiichi is being targeted by Culprit X, who happens to be a doctor, and one of the parents of the girl he shot. Culprit X felt that the slap on the wrist Keiichi received wasn't enough and decided to take manners into his/her own hands.

Keiichi's death prior to Yoigoshi is adequately explained as the result of Rena's actions.If you are proposing that Keiichi died in Watanagashi/Meakashi and Tatarigoroshi due to intentional malpractice, I demand that you explain both how "Culprit X" found such rapid employment at that specific hospital and why a doctor with personal involvement in the case was assigned to Keiichi! For that matter, I demand that you explain why Ooshi did not warn Keiichi about the girl's parent(s) following him to Hinamizawa!

Culprit X is the girls father, she was born out of wedlock. And his family pressured him and his lover to not include him on the Birth Certificate, as it would bring shame to the family. Of course, she was of a lower class then him so marrying her would also bring his family shame. Therefore, the relationship between Culprit X and the girl is not public knowledge. It is not necessary for Culprit X to work in that hospital, the suggestion that he's a doctor is simply meant to explain how he could make Keiichi's death of the arcs where he dies in the hospital look natural.

...plausible.I propose that Meakashi is not a fully true account either, and that Shion, tainted by association with Keiichi, was pushed from a balcony! And why are we debating a Higurashi-specific point in red and blue?

I'm gonna downgrade this to 'possible' in my book. all of the character-specific Hinamizawa disease deaths happen independent of Takano's plans, at least insofar as we're shown. Besides, as far as I know, he dies for reasons explained in the media itself. In Watanagashi, he's killed by Shmion, in Tatarigoroshi he dies of a heart-attack induced by Hinamizawa syndrome (the manga is the most explicit about this IIRC)

By the time Keiichi was killed in Watanagashi, Shion and Mion were both dead. Therefore, it was impossible for either of them to murder him. Knox's 8th. It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented. Was the heart-attack that killed Keiichi in Tatarigoroshi determined to be caused by Hinamizawa syndrome by someone (e.g. Irie) who would have the medical knowledge neccesary to reliably make such a claim? Has any death whatsover been attributed to a Hinamizawa syndrome induced heart attack by such a person?

Because using the red and blue when debating is fun.

Yeah, but not everyone here even knows what the red and blue mean.We do still want this to be accessible to people only familiar with Higurashi.

Honestly, I think in this case their meaning should be obvious from the context.

The text can still be read no matter the color.So it shouldn't bother too much who don't understand it, but it is fun to who does.

One of you dicks please explain the colors!

Red is for facts and blue is for guesses. There's also green which is used to address the audience (for example to warn that a certain plant is poisonous or to explain what various Japanese honorifics mean), and gold which is sometime inferior to, but sometimes superior to red.

Did Hanyuu specifically say that this was the last Hinamizawa she could create? I was under the impression that that had they had a couple more retries but Hanyuu was stressing that it was very few and they need to get this done right sooner than later.

Do we even have any reason to even trust that, though? By this point, Rika was getting incredibly cynical and defeatist; I can easily see Hanyuu lying about the amount of resets she had left in order to actually get Rika motivated to working towards a happy ending again. "A few" is certainly vague; really she could just keep saying they "had a few" left several times before Rika would have much reason to get suspicious. At that point, Hanyuu could probably just make up some nonsense about how her powers increased enough to give them some more tries, or something along those lines.

After they survived the Hinamizawa disaster in this world, they went on to a different town to start over, with new names and a new life. Besides, look at them. Akio◊ looks exactly like Keiichi◊.

The Yamainu were ALWAYS under Takano's control.

As part of Tomitake's Xanatos Gambit. He initially gave her control over the Yamainu to prevent her from finding out about the Banken. Tomitake was waiting for a period of excessive activity of the Yamainu so he could call them out for the corruption, and flush them out with the Banken. Kind of a cats and dogs scenario. Notice how the Yamainu are never shown protecting Rika, despite that being their alleged purpose.

They are shown doing that in Minagoroshi-hen. When Rika kicks the motorcycles and gets the thugs upset.

Well, duh. Something happening to Rika before Takano/Tomitake gave the word would have landed them in deep merde.

In Fact, in Matsuribayashi-hen, Rika uses this very concept (that Takano wanted to kill Rika herself, and in a particular way) as a bargaining chip.

Satoko was sexually abused by Teppei.

He did think her mom was beautiful, and Satoko does resemble her quite a lot. No Rina too..Plus it would have been an easy way to abuse, command, and manipulate her. A lot of fans think she endured sexual abuse during Tatarigoroshi-hen and it is somewhat implied, so the same should apply to her backstory and past/future abuse cases.

At one point, I think it's in Minagoroshi, Teppei looks at her and thinks about what he'd like to do when she's older, so that kind of implies it hasn't happened yet.

Rena's insanity in Tsumihoroboshi-hen and her actions was a direct result of Takano's manipulation.

There is a great irony in how Miyo, the actual culprit responsible for everything, was the one Rena trusted most and how she managed to make Rena believe that anyone but her could be that culprit. So after killing Rina and Teppei, Rena, despite Keiichi's help, was still in a very fragile state of mind. When they meet in the library, Rena tells her a story about her past and her experiences under the influence of Hinamizawa Syndrome, and as she talks about it, Takano figures out that her mental stability was fragile and that she would make a very easy target if she wanted to make someone believe her stories.

That's why she gave her her scrapbooks; to make her believe everything written, and for that to lead to the events of the latter part of Tsumihoroboshi-hen- Rena would be a very violent person, and Takano could use that as extra proof for Hinamizawa Syndrome. Nobody would even think of suspecting Takano of faking her death because Rena would have killed a lot of people by then and probably removed many obstacles out of Takano's path. According to the plan, anyway. When she saw that it didn't work, well...

Also- according to some Umineko: When They Cry TIPS, Lambdadelta aided Takano, which makes a lot of sense with this theory- probably, Lambdadelta's power guaranteed that Rena will be driven insane and murderous, though not that Keiichi wouldn't manage to snap her out of it.

Plausible. Rena was most likely at end-stage level 3 or 4 by the time her and the rest of her friends buried Rina and her pimp thusly would only be a small push towards being murderously violent and level 5. Keep in mind Level 3 onwards brings forth mental instability, so those documents were extremely likely, if not certain, to be the thing that drove her over the edge.

Also keep in mind that Takano does basically the same thing (that is, fuel one of the kid's paranoia) in both Tatarigoroshi-hen and Meakashi-hen. She tells Keiichi and Shion the rumors that the Sonozaki family is behind the annual Watanagashi Festival murders.

Chie won't ever get married

According to one story her standard is curry related. She turned a guy down somewhat due to him not liking the thought of eating curry every day. She also seems to dedicated to her students.

What stops her from being violent and staying level headed are her friends, family, and group activities. She also has her role as both the leader of her friends and the future leader of her clan to keep her close to earth. Take that all away or get her overly stressed and..

In one world Mion cracked due to her love towards Keiichi

She thought her affections for him were effortless and unrequited and that made her crack when she knew that Rena was also close to him.

Jossed. In Minagoroshi at least in the VN's Rika saids Mion is the only one who never snapped.

If something negative happened to affect Irie's HS research Shion would crack again

Confirmed, by "Limit".

Wasn't that a fanfiction that was won in a contest thus they asked one of the manga artists to draw it out?

Possibly, but since it was officaly published it can be considered part of the Expanded Universe, in my opinion.

Takano is a Mad Scientist researching insanity related parasites and masquerading as a kindly nurse. Medusa is a Mad Scientist researching the insanity-inducing Black Blood while masquerading as the school nurse. And in Matsuribayashi-hen, Takano seems awfully eager to vivisect Satoko... That sounds a lot like Dr. Stein. She even kind of looks like them!

Rika is the player.

Rika is the player in a computer game. She's been trying for ages to get the good ending, but the game is fiendishly difficult. At the end of the first season, she finally figures out that information from playing the game is carried over even if you reset. At the end of each playthrough, she dies and goes to the "New Game / Continue?" screen. She's figured out what the common scenarios are, and managed to unlock Hanyuu, but the disk is full so she can't save her progress.

Rena is secretly French.

This explains her cool hat and orange hair.

Well, Reina does sound a bit French though it's probably Japanese. How about half french? Had french ancestors?

The name Reina is of Spanish origin.

She could be part Mexican. There was an influx of Irish immigrants to Mexico at one period in time, so red hair is entirely plausible.

Reina means "queen", I think.

"reina" does mean "queen" in Spanish, but Reina (礼奈) is a Japanese name that is only coincidentally spelled the same as the Spanish word.

Even without taking Hinamizawa Syndrome into account, Shion is still psychologically unstable and carrying the strong potential to violently snap

Considering the conga line of traumas and misfortunes and being tossed aside by her family and losing her birth-right (and birth name) and losing her true love and whatnot, she probably has a lot of unresolved issues just waiting for the right trigger to set her off. To the point where even without the Syndrome, she'd still go violently mad if pushed too far in the right (wrong) direction.

Hanyuu was the true villain of the series.

Umineko eventually reveals that Lambadelta's true power is to guarantee the certainty of a certain solution, as long as someone continues to work toward that solution without faltering; the duration of the person's trials are unspecified, but if they keep at it, they'll be rewarded. Doesn't this sound just a bit like what Rika had to go through to reach her perfect end? Lambdadelta, who seems to be Miyo as a witch, once played a game against Featherine Augustus Aurora, who seems to be Hanyuu as a witch. In this game, Bernkastel was trapped for what seemed like forever. A glance at Lambadelta's ability would strongly imply that she was on Bernkastel's—and by extension, Rika's—side.

Bernkastel's poem's represent the stages of grief.

The five stages of grief are a theoretical set of emotional steps a person may go through when confronted by a loss or a terminal illness. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Not everyone goes through all five, they may skip a stage, remain stuck or return to a stage they have previously moved on from. Bernkastel skips bargaining but goes through the other four in order.

At the first time, I do my best to try against the inevitable tragedy. - denial

In the second time, I become disgusted towards the inevitable tragedy. - anger

The third time, disgust is overwhelmed into painfulness. - depression

But by the seventh time, this all becomes a farce comedy. - (reluctant) acceptance

Satoko is colorblind.

Just a guess, but in book 5 of the manga, the others mention that she can't tell the difference between broccoli and cauliflower. Any talking about this or mocking of this ("Hey, Satoko, which is the green one?") makes her more angry. Maybe she really can't tell their different colors from each other, and just doesn't like to talk about it?

Not really a theory. It's pretty much outright stated in the original VNs that she's colorblind, at least with regards to green.

Hinamizawa Syndrome is rabies.

Both diseases can cause irrational actions in their victims, and even the end result is similar. Rabies results in hydrophobia and difficulty swallowing due to paralysis of the throat. Hinamizawa Syndrome's end result is...the victim clawing their own throat out. This raises further questions as to why such a common disease wasn't identified as such by Hifumi or even Miyo.

I think that toxoplasmosis is a closer real-life counterpart. Although it's still controversial, some studies consider toxoplasmosis to cause symptoms including increased jealousy and suspicion, hallucinations, hearing voices, and persecutory delusions. The possibility that the parasite affects human behaviour was proposed around the 1950s and then ignored until around the 2000s, which might help to explain why Hifumi failed to make the identification and why his thesis was ridiculed at the time. Of course, unlike Hinamizawa Syndrome it's not confined to one geographic location, but maybe there's a particularly nasty form of the parasite that only exists there?

Keiichi is at least being influenced by Satoshi

Just so I don't say Keiichi is a reincarnation of Satoshi, whose similar ages would imply some kind of stretchy logic. First of all, this theory needs the acceptance of a corollary: Irie lied to Shion in the anime, and Satoshi is really dead, like in the rest of the media. They just keep his body to make studies on it. Takano possibly killed him while "running away" to experiment on a corpse with the Hinamizawa Syndrome. Now that we have that out of the way, Keiichi. Not only he acts as the key pillar for the aversion of certain events, he is recognized by Satoko as her "nii-nii" in at least one occasion. Not only that, but he proves as useful as, if not more useful than our local goddess in terms of crisis aversion (extra points for not whining). Short version: Satoshi is a spirit that guides Keiichi through the series, but it's not strong enough to prevent his paranoia when he snaps. Long version: Due to his will to be by Satoko's side, Satoshi's spirit didn't fully depart the world. Hanyuu learned of this and took him secretly even to Rika through the loops. Being a spirit and all, he's not bound to the mortal notion of memory, so he doesn't have to worry about not being Rika to keep his memories through the loops. This allowed him to act to Keiichi as she is to Rika, just that he doesn't know. When Rika finally won against Takano, Satoshi finally disintegrated, as he was no longer needed. This would explain Rika saying that the worlds without Keiichi were lonely ones; Satoshi couldn't act through Keiichi if he wasn't present, so it would feel like "something's missing". It also explains why Keiichi looked like having a fit after remembering how he murdered Mion and Rena - Satoshi successfully injected the knowledge into him so he would know how to react against a similarly perturbed Rena. Ryuuguu's dreams about killing Rina in Kai were also induced by Satoshi so he wouldn't have to make Keiichi pass through the pain of the memory injection again. Of course, you can also say there was another God aside from Hanyuu that was provoking seizures to little kids, so, yeah.

If you want to believe in a Satoshi is Keiichi, then consider that Rika had accepted the death of both of her parents and the convenient "disappearance" of Satoshi as facts, centering on the endless June prior to her death. If the above theory stands up until the point where Satoshi helps Keiichi, then it becomes plausible that, in one of the worlds that came before Hanyuu would begin to lose her powers, Hanyuu actually forced Satoshi into Keiichi the same way she is supposed to force "killed Rika"'s consciousness and memories into the "new world's Rika". The rest of the last theory is about the same, except Satoshi doesn't remember past experiences from previous loops as he returned to being a human. Being part forced spirit, though, he was able to trigger memories in Tsumihoroboshi, allowing him to remember he kills Mion and Rena, as well as some key points that don't really connect into sense, but that allowed him to do things such as showing Rika he could change the game they would play, or conveniently knowing he should give the prize doll to Shion. When Rika won, Satoshi left Keiichi's body one last time for good.

Following the logic of the last theory, does that mean that Satoshi is really an undercover pervert who only shows his dirty side when he's controlling another guy's body? Good to know.

Haruhi Suzumiya is the reincarnation of Rika.

Rika has died so many times over the course of the series, so it's plausible that once the loop she made is over she'll die young anyway. As far as the connection to Haruhi goes, at the end of the series Rika notes to herself that she can keep that June going as long as she wants. Conclusion: Higurashi is basically an extreme version of Endless Eight and Rika, unlike Haruhi, is fully aware of her power. In other words, the loop isn't limited to Rika's subconscious desires.

Supposedly, the author (in a news release or something) intended for Mion and Keiichi to be shown to have feelings for one another (although it's not really touched upon, since the author wants to avoid a Romantic Plot Tumor situation). So, what the hey, lets mass guess and say they're the canon couple.

Given the previews for Musubienishi-hen, I'd say you're right.

Heh. Musubienishi ended up pairing Keiichi with Oryou, which cannot possibly be taken seriously.

Well, seeing how much shipping was devastated during the episode, Mion and Keiichi seemed like only couple to end on a positive note.

Miyo Takano was motivated to fufil her agenda after being inspired by Dr Jonathan Crane...

...A.K.A Scarecrow. Crane was bullied back when he was a kid. With that, he thought that he shouldn't be a weakling anymore. He grew up to become a psychologist at Arkham Asylum, secretly experimenting with his fear toxin. Donning his scarecrow outfit and using his fear toxin, Crane spreads fear upon the people of Gotham just to show that he is someone not to be messed with. Similarly, Takano had a similar childhood, thought that she should show the people of Hinamizawa she ain't a loser, grew up to become a nurse just so she could experiment with the Hinamizawa diease, all with the intend of unleashing it upon the village and showing them who's boss. Now all she needed was a scary (and sexy) scarecrow outfit but that black dress worked out fine anyways.

HOLY IMMINENT CROSSOVER FANFIC, BATMAN!

The system in Hinamizawa village is a good mixture of patriarchy and matriarchy

The Gosanke are Sonozaki, Kimiyoshi and Furude. 1. The leader of Sonozaki is a female. The next in place, Mion, is her granddaughter. And the one who almost succeeded the Sonozaki family is Mion's mother. Three possible successor/leader of Sonozaki are all female. 2. The leader of Kimiyoshi is an old man. A female in this family, Kimiyoshi Natsumi, were not talked about like a successor. 3. The present leader of Furude is Rika, a female; however the previous one is her father. So... my guess is: Sonozaki leader is always female, Kimiyoshi leader is always male, and Furude leader is male for one generation, and female for the next. This is consistent with that every 8 generation there is a girl Furude who is considered Oyashirosama's incarnation and is Furude leader.

Wasn't it that there needs to be eight in a row to become Oyashiro-sama's incarnation, or did I just misread that? That aside, in Hanyuu's arc in the game, the head of the Kimiyoshi family is female, so I'd say that it's about half and half. The Sonozaki family's head, however, is female. There hasn't been any word of a male Sonozaki head, so I think it's likely that most heads of the Sonozaki family were female.

Yes, Oyashiro-sama is reincarnated only when there happen to be eight females in a row. And to me it looks like neither "matriarchy" nor "patriarchy" nor a mixture, but simply that the first-born child inherits (unless they do something to be removed from that position, like Akane) regardless of gender.

Okay, this is how I see it, after having read right through both Umineko and Higurashi. Higurashi was Featherine and Lambdadelta's game, with Featherine's piece being Hanyuu, trying to solve the mystery against Takano. This also brought about elevating Rika from the game board to the metaworld, in which all of the deaths before the good ending would form Bernkastel who appears in Umineko. At some point, Featherine and Lambda begin to tire of the game, and at some point it reaches a logic error (which is the imprisonment keeping Bern desperate for entertainment when Umineko comes around). This is also explains why Hanyuu is trying to stop Rika from getting her hopes up, and how Takano is suffering from Villain Decay by the time Matsuribayashi-hen rolls around. Bern, trapped in the game board by the apparent logic error, eventually solves the game, defeats the 'logic error' (probably something to do with Takano's 'death'). She then reaches the level of voyager witch, and continues over to the events of Umineko when Shkanoyasutrice's game with Battler begins after the events of Umineko EP 1, with Lambdadelta following along shortly after and Featherine watching the game from behind the scenes until Umineko EP 8. The only thing left unexplained (although not conflicting with any of the above) is the existence of Frederice Bernkastel, who writes the poems and (supposedly?) convinces Takano to go with her parents to the shop, creating the sinless world of the Dice-Killing Arc.

Fredrica is most likely a different person than Trollkastel and is indirectly responsible for Trollkastel's "birth". Look at their eyes. You'll notice that Fredrica's eyes look much more "alive" than Trollkastel's dead, lifeless looking eyes (MAJOR red flag as to her true nature). Fredrica also looks a bit older (Rika at age 18-22) than Trollkastel (Rika at age 15-16).

A theory regarding the club members ages?

Rena is confirmed to be 15. According to the visual novels, she was born in July. That leaves the puzzle of what the ages of the rest of the club members are.

Keiichi: 16. We know the series occurs in June and that he is in the same grade as Rena (based on the stuff he was studying, I'd say the equivilant of a US 10th grader).

His birth month is April in the visual novels, though the exact date and year isn't stated.

If the DOB of Mion mentioned below is true, then the year would most likely be 1967, making him 16.

Mion: 17. Keiichi's upperclassman, thus is older than him.

The remakes of the visual novel list her birthday as 2/11/66, but since it's a remake, it could be off.

That date for the purposes of the WMG, makes lots of sense. She's most likely a junior (using US gauge), and assuming average academic progression, one would most likely be 17 at that stage.

However, the TIPS in the original VN put the twins' birthday later in the year. If we go by this, since they are one grade ahead of Keiichi, they are not 17 yet.

Since they're both technically canon, it could probably go either way.

Shion: 17 (or 16; see above). Identical twin of Mion.

Satoko: 12. The opening episode says something about her and Rika being a few grades lower (logically this means 2-4 as 5 is most certainly more than "a few grades"), narrowing it down to 11-13. Mion and Rena said something about "that time in a woman's life" implying a period or something like it. This further narrows the age range down to 12-13. It should be worth noting that her birthday is June 24th, just three days after everyone dies.

That date would rule out 13 as Satoko would turn 14, which based on her appearance is biologically illogical.

The Watanagashi festival takes place on the 19th in that year. Careful counting of the days that pass shows that Meakashi and Tsumihoroboshi actually finish on the 25th, though Satoko's birthday was never mentioned.

Rika: 12. Generally accepted as being the same age as Satoko give or take a few months.

Satoshi (former member as a result of coma): 16-18. This one's the biggest mystery. All of it depends on knowing if 1. Satoshi was older than Keiichi and 2. determining the age of Shmion.

Detective Ooishi (or however the heck you spell it) actually mentions in the first season that Satoshi is a year older then Keiichi. Assuming that the above estimate of Keiichi's age is correct, that means that Satoshi is 17.

Unlike them, its only on a subconscious level, and it only starts to occur during the Massacre chapter. Keiichi's mom said something about the perfect crime again as it relates to Teppai. Oryou's Bat Man Gambit involving Keiichi (revealed during Festival Music) may be the result of realizing that 1. her actions were the cause of her death in the Cotton Drifting and Eye Opening chapters, and 2. on a subconscious level, she's aware of his incredible charisma and intends to use it to bury the resentment against the Hojos due to events of the Massacre chapter. Akasaka figured out that he needed to fall back due to Rika's prophecy. His need to help Rika in her time of need may of also been a catalyst for him to develop that CQC training MUCH earlier than he normally does.

Considering that it is mentioned in Umineko that Featherine grew bored of her previous game, there is a high possibility that Featherine (Hanyu's meta persona and the gamemaster for Higurashi) wrote a fantasy perfect happy ending to Higurashi and abandoned the gameboard, this would explain how everyone remembered previous worlds and how Hanyu can exist. This created a logic error. There was then a split in Fredrika Bernkastel (Rika's meta persona and the main player in this gameboard) into Furude Rika that kept living the life of Matsuribayashi Rika and the logic error Rika that turned into Berkastel. Bernkastel kept trying and trying to solve the game on her own in an almost infinite number of times as mentioned in Umineko, and finaly succeded. This is supported by Bernkastel in Umineko when she says that all "miracles" are only constructs made by sentient being, in this case Featherine making the "miracle" of Matsuribayashi happen. In Umineko, battler mentions early that he has read Higurashi. This is because he read it while staying with Ikuko Hachijo, the author of Higurashi (or maybe she just read the story and created a fanfic happy ending to it).

Hanyuu is an Incubator like Kyubey. Rika wished to keep repeating her live until she escapes her fate. As she starts to give up on the worlds she starts to become a witch. She loses the ability to go as far back in time because she doesn't fight witches. If it wasn't for the fact that she disposed of Bernkastel, she would have become a witch

Hinimizawa Syndrome is a uber nasty form of Borna Virus

This theory comes from my academic background being in the study of bacteria and viruses. Many of the symptoms for the disease can be induced by dopamine malfunctions in the limbic system (located in the central front section of the brain). Recall that heart attacks can be triggered by intese fear, which includes from hallucinations. Since Keiichi gets it, we can rule out blood borne and vertical transmission, making the most likely route of transmission being infected nasal secretions or aerosol.

At the time of Higurashi's writing, borna virus was suspected in several mental disorders. It specifically binds to the limbic system, and its mode of transmission is via infected nasal secretions.

Nomura is an alien

That's right, the alien theory was semi-accurate. In fact the whole Alien Invasion was a scam to keep Takano Miyo working hard. In actuality Nomura is an alien agent using the Hinamizawa events to her advantage to take Tokyo and gain power over all of Japan, not just one small village. Hey, it didn't say her faction was human.

This troper got this theory out of a random brainwave when looking up the supposed origins of the syndrome. Let's count the ways:

1) The two most popular methods of the syndrome coming into existence - either an alien spaceship crash or a synthetic plague - are both equally ridiculous. But that isn't to say they're outside of the realm of possibility, and Lambdadelta, being the Witch of Certainty, could make that One In A Million Chance happen.

2) The game board needed something to drive its protagonists and antagonists, and the Hinamizawa Syndrome wound up accomplishing this in spades. Plus it's been all but confirmed that Takano was her piece, who For Science! about the syndrome would exterminate everything in Hinamizawa.

3) Her opponent in the game is heavily implied to have been Featherine. It goes without saying that conventional tactics wouldn't work on her, so Lambdadelta had to get creative with a Hate Plague to make the protagonists tear themselves apart instead of the antagonists.

4) She's a freaking Troll. A Troll with no regard for the lives she messes with, no less. Doing something like this is very much within her character.

There are several problems with that theory:

1) It was shown in the 6th novel that much of Takano's scrapbook was full of crap. The scrapbook was useful in a "kernal of truth hidden in the web of lies" sense (hint as to what the cause of the cycles of madness are and to the identity of the antagonist).

2) Takano is a Troll, with the loads of crap done INTENTIONALLY as chaffe to either distract or provoke the Hate Plague

3) Yes, Lambadelta is a Troll, but she's more of a morally ambiguous low grade troll, especially in comparison to Trollkastel or Featherine.

4) Several microbiologists have actually looked at HS and concluded that it is a very scientifically plausible parasite. Not that hard to explain through naturalistic ways barring the whole disappears upon death thing (possible research flub of R7's part?).

Not very wild or far-fetched. The Sonozaki estate leaves the vegetation along the fenceline deliberately overgrown to attract and shelter snakes as an added deterrent to intrusion. The signs around the fence include a caution that they are poisonous. Occasionally one may slither onto the path to the house as Mion is arriving or leaving, and even if the gun doesn't kill it, the noise and impact would be sufficient to scare it back into the grass.

His frequently and flamboyantly expressed obsession with maids is on the order of Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today? And so is the duplicity. For all his talk of training maids and keeping them as oppressed as slaves, he's quite pushover boss. He's always solicitous of their feelings, concerned about their happiness, responsive to their complaints and compliant to their demands; and yet he puts only yielding pressure on them to keep up the minimal expectations of their duties. When it was implied that Keiichi wear a maid outfit to clean as a punishment, Irie was thrilled to talk about dressing and serving as a meido, and dwelt on the idea for an uncomfortably long time.

Rika Furude was very much leaning towards becoming a witch in Saikoroshi-hen, but ultimately decided not to, instead wanting to live out a normal and happy life in the world everyone fought so hard for and purging herself of her splinter personality. This is important.

Frederica Bernkastel intentionally confounds explanation by saying she both is and isn't Rika and that she definitely isn't Umineko's Bernkastel, but this is where From a Certain Point of View kicks in: she probably used to be Rika, or more accurately, an Alternate Universe Rika who did decide to become a witch since she had no way to get rid of the splinter personality, but believed she made the wrong decision in the end. Going by the popular theory that Frederica actually caused Saikoroshi-hen by making it so Takano Miyo never happened and thrust Rika into the "perfect world" that resulted, she may have decided it was too late for her and wanted to give Rika a chance to live a normal life where she could not. Which if true, it did work... though not quite as planned... regardless, her actions to make Rika a different being then what Frederica eventually became explains he she both can and can't be Rika Furude: she isn't the Rika we know.

If the above is true, then this action is what Umineko's Bernkastel into being. If Rika did get rid of the splinter personality, then where could it have gone? Perhaps it didn't cease to exist, but was the Rika left all alone in the "perfect world", crying over having just killed her mother, with her cries going unanswered by Hanyuu because the real Rika was waking up in her own world and was thus completely oblivious to the second Rika. Feeling abandoned, betrayed and left to wallow in her own misery, she eventually became the "Trollkastel" we now know as the Witch of Miracles. Unlike Frederica however she doesn't make any outward claims that she isn't Rika Furude, because as far as she knows, she is. How's that for Fridge Horror?

Another popular theory regarding Frederica is that she was born in a way similar to Bernkastel - by Rika purging her own subconscious of her past selves, which is possible if she has no real control over how or when it happens (and Saikoroshi-hen all but implies that she doesn't, nor does she know that it even happens). The difference is that while Umineko Bernkastel was created from all the dead Rikas and is a being of pure cruelty, Higurashi Bernkastel was created from the Rikas who gave up on fighting fate and is made up of hopelessness and sorrow. While this provides a different origin story for Frederica however, it doesn't disprove above the theory on her involvement (and may in fact be a motivation for it).

First of all, it can't be just another version of the 1983 loop — the "parasites" act nothing like Hinamizawa Syndrome. But it also can't be (as some have speculated) Takano's idea of how the virus worked, because the outbreak happens without the "Queen Carrier" dying. Moreover, based on her conversation with Rika, Hanyuu is not at all the same being from Kai. This one talks like she's one of the parasites, implies that they came from another planet, and has no sympathy for anyone. And where the hell is Shion?

Nothing fits with the Hinamizawa we know — so this isn't the Hinamizawa we know. It's like Marvel Zombies or The Legend of Zelda or the Evangelion-in-high-school series: same characters, whole different world. The revelations in Kaku have no bearing on the original series or vice versa, and any attempt to reconcile them will just end in tears.

The world of Higurashi is the real world while Umineko was just an Alternate Universe.

Higurashi- Hanyuu wasn't shot, leading to happy ending, and thus Rika is not given the chance to be a witch. But during the events of Saikoroshi, what Hanyuu meant by "either kill your mother or stay in this world" is "either refuse the offer of being a witch or accept the offer and kill the world of Higurashi", as if Rika was given one last chance. But since she finally knew whatit means to change fate, she chose to be Furude Rika rather than Bernkastel. In short, the Hanyuu who went to Saikoroshi must have been Lambdadelta.

Umineko- Hanyuu was really shot and Rika wasted her one last chance of surviving by dying in the hands of Takano. She was then locked in the Golden Land. One day, Hanyuu (who now was Featherine since she accepted the offer of being a witch) and Lambdadelta (a witch made up of the Takanos that achieved god status) offered Rika the chance of being a witch. Thinking that she has no choice, she gratefully accepts, thus starting the world of Umineko.

The fact that she shares sensations with Rika is similar to how damage is shared between Stands and their users

Her ability to send Rika back in time is very reminiscent of Killer Queen's Bites the Dust

We see in Rei that she can interact with the real world if she wants to

The reason that she can think and act on her own is because she's an independent Stand. Hanyuu believing that she's Oyashiro-sama can be attributed to Rika mistaking her for such when Hanyuu first manifested, and Hanyuu accepting it as fact.

Alternatively, Hanyuu could be the Stand of Oyashiro-sama, who persisted on after her user's death like other independent Stands such as Anubis.

After getting erased in Stan's mind, the chant Bill recited wanting to return took effect years later. But he didn't end up in Gravity Falls...Instead, he ended up in a a part of his original two-dimensional world near an entirely different town. Bill's presence began to slowly corrupt the town, and he is working behind the scenes, planning to drive Keichi to madness with the groundhog day loop so that he can make a deal to allow him to live a normal life, his real plan being to trick him into beginning his plan to escape the two dimensional world once again so he can unleash Weirdmageddon on the world.

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